Selecting the theme for WordPress website isn’t so easy task. After all, there are so many beautiful themes with exciting features, and review all of them to choose only one, can be a heavy difficult objective. However, what is it – WordPress theme?

What is a template?

In short, the template (theme) – is a versatile tool that allows you to configure the functional site interface to suit your needs. Simply put, the template is a collection of files and style, are responsible for the output of information design and presentation of the website in the browser.

There are both paid templates for WordPress, as well as free. The choice of topics that are both commercial and free distribution, simply limitless. Paying pattern or not depends on the specific goals and abilities. With proper knowledge and experience in programming of any template that is distributed free of charge, you can make a unique and beautiful site.

Free WordPress templates, strong differences between them, allow you to quickly change the design of the web-resource. In addition, today the concept of template stepped far beyond the simple GUI and provides a wide range of specific functionality, such as a web shop, and full adaptability for tablet or phone.

This freedom of choice and wealth – one of the main reasons why people choose WordPress as their CMS. Only the official WordPress repository contains the hundreds of free WordPress so that you can not only use, but also to change under their requirements. Except the official repository, there are also a lot of companies providing premium WordPress themes selling topics with additional features and enhanced support.

The first design theme, which will choose new to WordPress – 90% of the free. Very often, it remains the last. So, what is a goods of free themes?

The most important advantage is price. More precisely, the lack thereof. You can experiment with many topics, selecting their liking. Depending on the license, which is distributed on a theme – it can be modified beyond recognition received as a result of a unique design template.

Speed ​​of implementation. To quickly set the site do not need to bother with the payment confirmation, the seller’s expectation and all that. Download – set – activated. In some cases, speed is very important and very free themes help out.

A huge number of free templates. They are really a lot. And of the thousands (tens of thousands), make sure there is one that will become the mainstream.

However, consideration should be given their imaginary dignity a little deeper and find out whether or not so good free themes, as they say their developers.

What problems can be encountered by a free WordPress template for your site?

Hidden links
Hidden links – this is a very bad moment, which can cause a lot of problems in the future. Some topics of free removal of external links is a fairly simple procedure, but in some cases it is very difficult to find and remove without consequences. Developers of these templates primarily operate order which has certain conditions. And one of the most important conditions is to place hidden links to the life of the customer or its partners. As a result, in spite of the availability and gratuity most WordPress templates, developers get a lot of money for them, which, as you know, it just never paid and must be worked out.

Thus, in the operation of your website, prescribed in the code of external links will “give away” its authoritative weight, referring to the third-party resources. But that’s half woes. And if these same dedicated resources even substandard or prohibited by law, then you know what the consequences of such “cooperation” expect your site. Some templates to get rid of the hidden links of sponsorship is very difficult, but if you still managed to find them, their removal can lead to blocking of the site.

The complexity of the selection of an appropriate topic
Indeed, despite the many submitted by Free WordPress Templates, you cannot always choose the right option rather quickly. If you have decided on a template design, then you cannot arrange its functionality or vice versa. Ultimately, we have to sacrifice something and modify the weak link on their own, it is certainly possible that if you have sufficient knowledge and skills. Otherwise you’ll have to contact a professional web developer and their services will cost you is not cheap.

Even if you are lucky and you choose the desired pattern that satisfies you both in terms of design and functionality, to the theme after installation on the engine to get the entire functionality to the developers, it is necessary to supplement the mass of template plugins. In addition, the need to be alert to the possibility that some of the free WordPress themes can simply “crooked” installed on the engine, which is usually due to the fact that they were developed by another version of the platform. Such a defect may occur later, after the upgrade version of WordPress. Therefore, before you upgrade the engine is always necessary to make a backup of the site.

The problems associated with the change of design
Not all free WordPress themes allow you to change the default provided by design. In this case, it is very difficult, and in some cases impossible to make the necessary changes in the visual structure of the site – to change the header files or the lower fixed part; reduce or increase the number of columns, their arrangement and layout; and change the background wallpaper; and much more. Although possessing sufficient technical knowledge, you probably will achieve the desired result, but not always it is done safely and in this case you will have to sacrifice something.

Payment for functionality
In the operation of the site, the demands made by its functionality to grow in direct proportion to its development, and depends on its success. Thus, to achieve the desired result of the need to install a large number of plug-ins, which increases its volume and adversely affects its performance. Moreover, many WordPress plugins are created by third-party developers, who often do not agree on methods for the realization of their products, which is the cause of conflict used on the same platform, plug-ins, as well as individual plug-ins used by the template. Many authors plugins previously issued cease their support in the future, which leads to weight vulnerabilities in the security of your site, which eliminated the only way – the installation of new plug-ins.

Text inability for different types of design
Other free themes may have different fonts and display specific labels on the page. For example, in the text punctuation can “stick” to the beginning of the next word for it; description of the article can cover title of the article; It is not possible to insert a picture in the template cap; a very narrow field of news feed (main field); Limit the number of objects in the left-hand or right-hand column, or both (further addition of objects leads to the transfer of the territory of the news feed that is completely spoils the design).

It is also bad for the overall optimization of a site, as it may be improper use <h> h1 tag and on the main news section. All the titles of your articles will be enclosed in <h1>. That is on the same page will not be a single tag <h1> …. </ H1>, but many. It’s too bad, because the search engines do not explicitly refer to these pages, and either respond only to the first record, or exclude the page from indexing. On any page of the site tag <h1> …. </ H1> There should be only one copy!

Banality
This disadvantage is obvious. All free WordPress templates presented in the most numerous catalogs are already being used in the global network and to find unique, of course, impossible. Even if you have got deep enough in the “redesign” the Web page standard form to its requirements, it should be borne in mind that all the free WordPress themes are developed using a standard template. Out of the situation, of course, is – completion of design resources on a paid basis. If you are an experienced web developer with sufficient knowledge in web programming, then you will be able to modify the template to the necessary state recognition, but it will take a lot of time and will require from you a lot of effort.

The actual lack of support
If the topic is old and not suitable for the version of the engine, which often happens with these templates, which were written by WordPress 2.x, it is a problem for untrained people. In such cases, the developer often can not or will not continue to support a template. Knowledge of PHP, CSS and HTML, you want a change in self often stops those who are not familiar with web-building. And it remains three options: either give someone money for their help (while losing a major plus), or to suffer the most, sorting out the intricacies, or look for a new theme (plus having lost the second, speed).

No source – no documentation
The vast majority of free templates is not complete documentation on setting up, despite the fact that often there are no problems with the installation of the template. Sources in PSD format – also the prerogative of paid templates, so the visual changes will have to sweat, repainting parts or replace them with others.

Selection of premium WordPress themes

Many people in the open source community believes that the premium WordPress themes are unreasonably expensive, and consider them to be an attempt to cash and greedy people to build empire on open source projects. We believe this view is fundamentally wrong.

Premium WordPress themes are in fact a contribution to an existing open source project. These topics provide solutions to the open source community cannot provide for free. In addition, we are confident that, thanks to the competition between web developers (WordPress Developers, WooCommerce Developers and Magento Developers) , the prices are quite fair, and even some of the topics evaluated by lower than expected, given the efforts invested in them by developers.

What are the benefits of choosing a premium WordPress themes:

Price – when you pay for the topic, it gives you a sense of confidence that you will be able to claim anything from the developer, because you – the customer.

Support – support on the official forums will be available to the actual developers, who will respond to your requests. This is great for beginners, especially those who are interested in learning the basics of the development.

Ample opportunities – in the development of the premium, most of the developers take into account the fact that they need to provide opportunities that others do not. Therefore, you get a theme that provides a lot of opportunities and facilitates your life.

Variety – Premium themes are very varied, to suit for different styles and types of sites.

Less common – due to the price factor and the difficulties in specific settings, the built-in premium, they are usually less common, and your visitors will consider your design is quite original.

Depending on the developer – the complete source code can be in PSD format, and all plug-ins, which are used in the subject.

Settings panel. It allows you to configure the template as you want, without significant web programming knowledge. In addition, many of the themes have built-in mechanisms for search engine optimization (SEO), ecommerce, social networking, online marketing and other stuff that you can implement plug-ins, but all-in-one, of course, pleasant.

Professional design. Design – the main advantage of the paid WordPress. Above paid templates are professional designers, and the moderation on “ThemeForest” by the criterion of “design” really tough.

Customization
The topics are often paid more opportunities to customize the look without the knowledge of HTML and CSS. You can change fonts and colors right from the settings panel. Many themes allow you to change not only the font and its size, produce very fine tuning of the color scheme. Some free templates are offered the same opportunities, but such patterns much smaller. After all, not every developer has to create a free template that can afford to spend hundreds of hours on it embodying different functions, you may need.

Custom solutions
Developer Task paid themes – stand out among the hundreds of competitors. Therefore, you can find premium threads are created to solve the original problems that go beyond a simple blog, or online journal. For example, there is a premium theme to create a service question and answer site ads, job search, property catalogs and many others. Of course, we can say that it is not applicable to the design – Top Purpose WordPress themes, and better, when these functions are implemented via plug-ins. However, a regular user, who is not good at coding and programming, will achieve that desired it, for example, the offline plug-looked perfectly with his WordPress theme. And then he offers affordable turnkey solution.

Access to the official community
WordPress is a community. It is an open source project that exists only because the developers generously share their time and talent. Buying a premium product, you support WordPress economy and help the community grow. You help some developers to make a living.

We have given a number of reasons why you might want to pay for a premium theme and plug-ins. We believe that it is necessary to pay for the good stuff. on topics Prices range from a few dollars to several hundred, and most plug-ins are in the same range. Even if you buy a whole bunch of plugins and theme of your dreams, you will not have to deal with encryption, paying for all only a few hundred dollars.

In fact, if you hire developers to encode all this, you will pay substantially more, and you yourself understand perfectly. So, yes, premium themes and plugins are worth more than the free WordPress themes. But it is still much affordable web design option than paying for the coding of the website.

How to choose the perfect theme?

Choosing a theme WordPress, you should focus on the needs of your site, for which you want to achieve, your budget, your personal capabilities and skills in management. Given all the advantages and disadvantages of options, you need to figure out which one is best for your site. Ideally, you need to find a topic that:

Provides layout and functionality that you need.

Easy set up and adjusted.

Includes additional options for specific sites.

Regularly updated and duly supported by developers.

There is a lot of opportunities in terms of support for you to get help, if it is you need.

If you feel that any premium or free options do not meet your needs, just remember that there are many developers who can create a theme for you, perfectly meets your needs. This real beauty of open source – you always have options.

We choose only paid templates for WordPress!

If you want to create a serious project, promoting it, and in the future also to earn on it, we recommend that you use only high quality premium theme for WordPress. In general, use only all unique: text, images, design and so on. Just pay attention to the disadvantages of free themes listed above.

Free templates for WordPress can be used for training, or for projects that do not require the promotion and advancement. Then you do not have to pay. However, in the case of a serious large, medium and small business web design – requires investment, and you need to start investing with a paid template, hosting and domain!